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U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
Patent Technology Monitoring Team (PTMT)

U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES-
UTILITY PATENT GRANTS,
CALENDAR YEARS 1969-2012

- this report was created with support from the National Science Foundation -

BREAKOUT BY UNIVERSITY ASSIGNEE -
PATENTS DISTRIBUTED BY CALENDAR YEAR OF PATENT APPLICATION

NUMBER OF UTILITY PATENTS ASSIGNED ANNUALLY
TO U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Explanation of Data --

This set of drill-down tables has been prepared from the Technology Assessment and Forecast (TAF) database and presents utility patent activity (i.e., 'patents for inventions'), by assignee name (ownership), for patents having ownership assigned to U.S. colleges and universities. Counts of patents granted since 1969 are displayed in each table. Annual counts are available for each of the most recent 21 years, while counts for earlier years are displayed in a single data column at the left side of each table (in the extended annual data tables, annual counts are available for each year since 1969).

For the purposes of this report and these tables, patent assignee information is determined by the first-named assignee at the time of patent grant, as listed on the issuing patent.

Displayed patent counts in these tables are distributed by the year in which the granted patents were applied for (i.e., filed), instead of by the year the grants were issued (1). These data do not represent the number of application filings; only those filings that resulted in patent grants are counted here..

These tables are divided into three types as follows:

ALL U.S. UNIVERSITIES:

This table displays separate counts of utility patents (i.e., 'patents for inventions') for each university assignee name that has been associated with a U.S. college or university.

Please note that in this table, some university entities may have more than one university assignee name associated with them.

TOP 250 R&D UNIVERSITIES WITH CONSOLIDATED COUNTS:

This table displays separate counts of utility patents (i.e., 'patents for inventions') for each of the top 250 academic institutions ranked according to R&D expenditures in fiscal year 2011 (2).

For each university entry, this table displays a consolidated count of patents granted to all university assignee names that have been associated with that university. In some cases, patents for as many as five or more university assignee names may have been consolidated to obtain the patent counts listed for a single university in this table.

INDIVIDUAL LISTINGS FOR EACH TOP 250 R&D UNIVERSITY:

Each of these tables displays counts of utility patents (i.e., 'patents for inventions') for a university ranked in the top 250 academic institutions according to R&D expenditures in fiscal year 2011 (2).

For the university, each of these tables displays patent counts for each university assignee name that has been associated with it. A total count for all associated assignees is also provided.

Footnotes:

(1) - DATA FOR THOSE APPLICATIONS WHICH WERE FILED BUT NEVER ISSUED (HISTORICALLY, ABOUT 35% OF TOTAL FILINGS) ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THESE TABLES.

Since the average time period between filing for a patent and the issuing of the patent (i.e., a patent's "pendency") is about 32 months (for utility patents), the data in these tables for 2003 to December 2012 are incomplete. This is because a significant number of the applications filed from 2003 to December 2012 which will ultimately become patents were still pending in December 2012. Since they had not yet become patents as of December 2012, they are not included in these tables.

Data displaying patents as distributed by their year of application are of significant value since the date an application was filed more accurately reflects when the technology was developed. Additionally, fluctuations in patent data distributed by application date are much more likely to reflect changes in technological activity, since such fluctuations would for the most part be immune to changes in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) processing such as occurred in years such as 1986 when the USPTO issued fewer patents than would normally have been expected due to a lack of funds to print patents. Note that a patent's "pendency" can be quite variable from one patent to another thereby affecting the date of patent grant. Such variation in pendency is determined by many factors, including USPTO workload (which varies between technologies), budget and manpower levels, patent printing schedules, etc.

As of 12/31/2012, utility patent data, as distributed by year of filing, are approximately 95% complete for utility patent applications filed in 2004, 89% complete for applications filed in 2005, 80% complete for applications filed in 2006, 67% complete for applications filed in 2007, 49% complete for applications filed in 2008, 36% complete for applications filed in 2009, and 19% complete for applications filed in 2010; data are essentially complete for applications filed prior to 2004. About 90% of all patent documents granted by USPTO (i.e., including utility, design, plant, and reissue patents, statutory invention registrations, and defensive publications) are utility patent grants.

(2) - Academic institutions ranked in the top 250 for R&D expenditures in FY 2011 were identified from the National Science Foundation report, Higher Education Research and Development: Fiscal Year 2011, Table 13, Institution rankings ranked by FY 2011 R&D expenditures : FY 2004-2011. This NSF report, based on NSF's fiscal year 2011 Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey , collects the separately budgeted research and development expenditures reported by universities and colleges.

The term 'separately budgeted R&D expenditures' includes all funds expended for activities specifically organized to produce research outcomes. These activities are either commissioned by an agency external to the institution or are separately budgeted by an organizational unit within the institution. 'Expenditures' are funds actually spent by an institution during its fiscal year.

The names of the top 250 R&D academic institutions in the NSF report are shown in the table, 'Total R&D Expenditures at U.S. Colleges and Universities: Top 250 Institutions in R&D Expenditures in Fiscal Year 2011', available elsewhere in this patent report (Table of Contents section (1E)).

The NSF report provides a ranking that includes specific campuses of statewide systems, such as the University of California at San Diego (U CA, San Diego), which is ranked 6th in R&D expenditures in 2011. However, it is not always possible to identify the patents associated with a specific campus; frequently, the name of a larger institution or statewide system -- not a specific campus -- appears as the assignee name on a U.S. patent. For example, a patent assigned to the University of California may or may not be associated with the San Diego campus. As a result, for some academic institutions in the NSF top 250, only patent counts for larger institutions or statewide systems can be provided.

The table, 'Total R&D Expenditures at U.S. Colleges and Universities: Top 250 Institutions in R&D Expenditures in Fiscal Year 2011' (Table of Contents section (1E)) shows the assignee names on U.S. patents that most closely correspond to the academic institutions in the NSF top 250, and for which patent counts are provided in these drill-down tables. No attempt is made to provide total patent counts for specific campuses or research facilities, and where they do appear, those figures should not be considered the total patent count for those campuses or research facilities.

Other Information --

Analyzing the Data

Use of spreadsheet software may facilitate analysis of the data contained in these tables. Users should note that many spreadsheet software programs (e.g., Microsoft Excel) can import these tables directly. Check the spreadsheet software documentation for details.

Printing the Tables

Some web browsers permit acceptable printing of these tables directly from the web page. Also, importing the web page into spreadsheet or word-processing software may allow a user additional flexibility for formatting the tables for printing. Check the corresponding software documentation for details.

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